


Body Language

by brutti_ma_buoni



Category: Sex Education (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:55:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28049595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brutti_ma_buoni/pseuds/brutti_ma_buoni
Summary: When Maeve drops by for a consultation, is Jean aware what's really at issue?
Relationships: Aimee Gibbs/Maeve Wiley, Maureen Groff/Jean Milburn
Comments: 7
Kudos: 57
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Body Language

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greycoupon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greycoupon/gifts).



> Although not in the tags, there's a brief mention of Aimee's canon assault experience in the text.

It’s one of the girls that Jean has noted, stalking the school halls. Brilliant, aloof, clearly with a family situation of some difficulty. Absolutely not the kind to seek therapy, because she deals with her own issues and doesn’t need help. Until it all breaks down in a way Jean won’t pretend to predict, but can almost taste. Could be anything, from drugs to academic collapse under the pressure of working to Get On, Get Going and Get The Fuck Out of her current quiet hell. Jean hopes it won’t happen at least until the girl is well away from Moordale. It’s always easier to rebuild once you have your feet under you, once you’re away from your roots.

Jean never looks back at her roots. Otis never asks. It’s one of the marvellous things about motherhood – your previous identity can be entirely subsumed. Otis’s Mum, they call her. And never ask who she is, or was, or wants to be. That can be a prison, certainly – Maureen feels it. Jean, though, finds the severing of past and future almost intoxicating still. Or did, till this complicated year embroiled her in too many more strands, unsure which one to pull. Or rather, knowing which one she longs to pull, but fearing what will unravel if she dares.

It’s not that Jean has time to scan every Moordale student for signs of breakdown. This girl came onto her radar thanks to Otis, who obviously adores her, and would bow down before her if her defences were less absolute. But Maeve Wiley isn’t here to talk about Otis. She isn’t fool enough to come to Otis’s mother about that. And doesn’t have enough self-love to come on her own account. 

Jean leans back, as Maeve shuffles into her seat. Sullen, deliberately: the girl has learned to project uncaring, while still caring desperately. Jean doesn’t want to pity her, but a small internal voice does do that. Maeve mustn’t know. Jean steeples her fingers, revoltingly expert and Sherlockian: anything to cover her thoughts. 

“Ah, Ms Wiley. Tell me about your friend.”

There’s just a flash of surprise, which no amount of eyeliner quite blurs. Her lips don’t even form the H of _“How did you know?”_ , but the impulse is there. Jean stifles an unworthy internal snicker, and progresses smoothly. “You must be very concerned to come to me. I imagine you’re used to managing situations yourself.”

There’s a lift of chin, a squaring of shoulders. Yes. Jean has found the right button. Maeve Wiley doesn’t appreciate self-abasement. “I am. I do. But I think- I just-“ She pauses, and collects herself. “My very lovely friend was assaulted. On a bus. By some _wanker_.”

The last word is clearly not a metaphor.

“That’s very unpleasant,” says Jean, and means it. Maeve spots that, and her stiff spine bends just a fraction. This isn’t part of a power play. This is two women acknowledging the deficiencies of the world, and the ways it empowers abusive men. 

“Yes,” says Maeve. “And she was… She wasn’t okay. She was trying, but she wasn’t. And then she shared with us.”

“Us?” Jean is intrigued. 

Maeve rolls her eyes. “There was a night. We let loose a bit. Shared.” Her tone is withering. “We got a bit pissed. And angry. And violent.”

“Violent?” Jean is swift. That word is a departure, and a worry. 

But Maeve’s posture is still relaxed. “There’s a place you can smash stuff. We smashed. We shouted. We let loose. It was-“ Better than relaxed, she is smiling, albeit internally. “It was a good night.”

“It certainly sounds so.” Jean wonders where the Place for Smashing and Shouting is. Not that she needs such a thing. But some nights, the nights when she gets so close with Maureen and doesn’t quite take the next step... The nights when her ridiculous, late-life baby kicks her in the kidneys and reminds her of everything she has misjudged this year and the avenues she is closing. Well. Those nights, something to smash might be considered therapeutic.

Maeve’s relaxation creeps away though. “But it’s not fixed. I’m still worried about Aimee. Still thinking about her.” Her hands clasp, twist. Nails biting in. Her lips quirk, hard. “It’s not like I need another thing to worry about. Got plenty on my plate.” 

“You’re young to worry so much,” Jean notes. That’s a mistake, as Maeve tightens further. “But I’m not a therapist in that area. We don’t need to discuss wider issues. And you know that. Which makes me wonder…” She wouldn’t take this approach with everyone, but this young woman can certainly cope. “Why exactly did you want to talk to me? What’s going on in your sex life that you need to talk about?” 

Jean has plenty of experience. She shouldn’t be quite so pleased when Maeve’s shoulders square, chin up. This is the issue, and Maeve is going to talk. 

“Sexuality. Is it really a spectrum? Where do you stand on Kinsey? Do people change circumstantially?” She’s trying to be abrupt and intellectual, but the way her knuckles are interleaved and twisting, the answer matters.

“Well,” says Jean, objective. Judicious. Liberal, of course. “I think we can all agree that Kinsey is outdated. Quite a rigid system. And perhaps we might say that putting someone else’s label on how you as an individual feel about another person isn’t necessarily a solution. Perhaps we might say… go with it? So long as you’re both happy, intellectualising isn’t necessarily the most important thing.”

A wrong step there. Maeve’s mouth twists. “Except I’ve never felt like this before. And she hasn’t a clue.” 

Ahhh. Well, she may be brilliant, and worryingly self-reliant. But she is still a teenager. _Does the girl I fancy like me?_ A question for the ages. 

“This is your friend?” Jean checks. It seems obvious that Maeve started out by referring to the person she just can’t stop thinking about, but best to get it out on the table. 

“Yes. She’s the best person I know. That sounds stupid, but she really- She’s always positive. She gets me. She tries so hard to make the world nice, and when it isn’t, she’ll still brighten it up, like sunshine in February. And I really, really can’t stop thinking about kissing her.”

Well. This is familiar, in many ways. Jean wants, so badly, to make this right. Because, ridiculously, if she can fix these teenagers, perhaps she and Maureen can also be fixed? Absurd. 

“Is she attached to anyone else?” First things first: complications come in many flavours and teenage rivalry isn’t one she wants to manage. Much easier if there’s an unsatisfactory, buttoned-up ex somewhere, demonstrating everything that Maur- that the _friend_ escapes from. 

Not a source of tension for Maeve, either. A headshake, a half-grin. “She had a boyfriend. Nice guy. I think they just drifted apart, though. And Aimee- She’s a person who needs someone else. Someone to care about.”

“So there’s a vacancy.” It’s abrupt, but Jean isn’t surprised to see Maeve respond well. A nod, this time, and a grin widens. 

“There is, for now. So now’s the time to move. If I’m sure. If she’d be up for it. But-“ a shrug. Those fingers start to twist again. Maeve’s even biting the inside of her lip. She looks so _young_ , Jean can hardly stand it. But it’s also sweetly redolent, young love and potential so intensely in the air. 

This won’t be Maeve’s first relationship. Jean highly doubts she has left fate to run its course before. So, perhaps- “If you liked a boy, what would you do?”

Maeve tilts her head, imagining. A possibility. “Ask? Two vodkas for attitude and just walk over and say what I want? I don’t want to do just that. That’s not what she deserves. And besides, I want more-“

“More?”

“More than twenty-five minutes of adequate distraction,” says Maeve crisply, and Jean almost ( _almost_ ) applauds. She wonders how many boys that describes, and how they see their performance. Less objectively, for certain. 

Maeve’s eyes are unfocused, seeing a whole different world. “I want to- I want to take her to places, and see how excited she gets, even if they’re a bit shit. She always sees the good parts. I want to walk round Primark and laugh at all the tacky tops and talk about social justice and fast fashion and buy her a cute handbag because I can see she wants it. I want to go to Alton Towers and win her a massive stuffed pig because she loves anything with a pig on. I want to take her to- to- Berlin, and dance in a sex club and watch her eyebrows climb off the top of her forehead, and how she’ll be all smiley with the drag queens and borrow their concealer. I want to share a kitchen with her, and make her breakfast toast, and buy her flowers, and know that when she makes a brilliant cake it’s _mine_ because she loves me. I want to go down on her for hours, if that’s what she wants, and feel her come on my tongue-“

Maeve stops. Jean smiles. Well, then. 

“I can’t tell you whether your friend will reciprocate your feelings. I can’t tell you whether to speak up, and how that would impact your friendship. I can’t promise you Berlin.”

Maeve looks angry. Baffled, even. _So why are you smiling?_ she doesn’t quite say. 

Which means Jean doesn’t get the chance to say, _Because your dilemma is my dilemma. And you’re not pregnant and dragging an unfortunate pair of relationships behind you. So your chances are better than mine_.

What she can say is: “But I can tell you that effective cunnilingus takes practice as well as sensitivity to your partner’s needs.”

Maeve’s own eyebrows shoot up before she can stop them. She wasn’t expecting that. Under it all, she’s still a teenager, and Jean is still Otis’s Mum. _“What?”_

Jean leans across the desk. Suddenly, there’s confidence there. “Maeve Wiley. You’re a brilliant woman. You have a huge amount to offer, and you know that. You don’t need someone to tell you how to relate to a friend you adore. I can wish you luck with exploring possibilities. I can hope that your friend’s journey in sex is at a compatible place with yours; that there’s a space there you could find together where your mutual feelings become something new. But what I can definitely do is give you a flying start on techniques you may have only experienced from the other side, from what you’ve told me. Do you want to take notes now, or an email later, for future reference?”

She’s not sure which part of that worked best for Maeve, but something certainly did. “Email,” she says, which is an excellent sign. No hiding this from herself, no throwaway flimsy paper. She will read whatever Jean sends, and she’ll practice and get feedback and make someone, Aimee or not, a wonderful lover someday. Jean feels like a prophet. 

Maeve adds, “Well, I really just need to ask, I guess. If I know anything about Aimee, it’s that she’ll be honest. And kind.”

“Good,” says Jean. Not at all jealous of such certainty. 

Maeve grins at her, fully relaxed. “Thanks for helping me work that out. Because you really have to speak up to make it work, don’t you? Like… Adam’s Mum won’t know unless you tell her. Will she?” And she slouches out, leaving Jean in turn with eyebrows soaring at the non sequitur. 

It takes perhaps fifteen seconds for her thoughts to work through the logic, to move through her increasingly unwieldy body and lever her out of the chair, to reach the door and to see Maeve walking down the hallway hand-in-hand with a sugar-sweet blonde friend, in a pig backpack and a fluffy sweater, who rests her head on Maeve’s shoulder for a precious second of togetherly couple touching. 

Maeve kisses the top of her head, then turns back to see Jean. “Thank you!” she shouts down the hall. “It’s good advice, Dr Milburn. You should try it.”

The two girls vanish into the distance, as two PE lessons let out and the hallway fills with sweaty sports kit. Jean stays where she is, one hand on her belly, one hand to her mouth. Processing. That bait and switch did not just happen. That young woman is _too much_.

That young woman may be right. Jean’s phone is back on her desk, and she returns, slowly, to ignore her professional schedule. To sink down into her office chair, and open Whatsapp, and type to MAUREEN _Drinks tonight? I’d love to see you._

MAUREEN *typing*…. _Any time. Can’t wait!_

Impossible to tell what her tone is. Jean can’t see her face, can’t gauge her eagerness. Can’t tell what that leaves open for the future, in this complicated world of adult living. But anything is possible, if she just asks.


End file.
